We’re Hosed

Even I spell mo` better that this ad I saw on Craigslist. All caps are a wonderful marketing idea too. I wish I’d thought of that. Strong, authoritative, decider-like. Cut and paste, just the way I saw it.

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Where in the black hole did Audacity hide that 70 minutes of digitized file? I guess I’ve got more testing ahead. Serious grumble. You have to know all the failures possible and cover them first in order to make the damn thing work. That’s so wrong. So sadly wrong. Odds are I”ll get wrong.

I’m going try recording again. Lou Reed (New York). It’s the album that talked me me into thinking that good thoughts aren’t nearly good enough to save the world and my actions, well they don’t matter in the big scheme, from the God Viewpoint. Happy Time Lou! There’s another reason that bad boy is the last to be saved.

“Bus load of faith to get by” and that’s the sing-along, happy melody, the rest is Lou invective from NYC. I think I visited NYC before I heard this. Either way I learned the center of the universe is only in NYC for sci-fi films and hip NY Talking bout NY broadcast from NY. That’s going to end, one day, another bubble from NY. Not as soon as the Conspiracy nuts hope, but it will.

I’m sure you’ve seen the nation wide TV ads, The New York Times Weekend (ohh, god that is that not exciting?) Delivered. To My Home. OMG! ,I crapped a east coast turd in my excitement at real enlightenment . No I don’t now what station Rush is on. Ass wipes from different directions.

Smug pandering, not so subtle “listen to me”. AndI get the chicks? A tax refund? (OK, I got your money and if you want Nancy to send me more of your money, I’ll cash that check too). I know the difference between free money for me, right now and free money the hijos pay. Not enough dollars to cover that NY Times offer. I’ll stay provincial, take your money, and make fun of you as you promote your brand. We all know that fact checking at the main stream media left the building with the Weekly World News, holding hands and making kissy sounds, Jees it’s not like Obama is a Muslim extra-terrestrial with secret, hidden babies with 5 eyes. 3 in front, two behind. You didn’t that from me. I’m leaning towards voting for the really old guy once I know his VP choice won’t get all bushy “I’m the decider, now”.

I have no idea what the MSM will do when they follow the collapse of the grey lady down into the pandering hole, It’s not pretty now. Won’t get prettier. Fox is in for a hard fall. Scandal or dumbness will do them it. But I can get the NYT Sunday Edition with all the NY advertisements and NY goodness. I’m should be throbbing at the chance to send the NYT my money.

It will end. It was predicted a decade ago when the internet bloomed, that trend is still in place (like or not, your opinion doesn’t change the trend). It could but it doesn’t.

I’ve always wondered why I pick one task over another. Writing a multi-column listbox in Shoes is probably doable but would be a real pain in the behind. I might as well do something just as mysterious. Like getting Audacity(Linux) to record some cassettes. What a pain in the “doesn’t close to work” department.

I don’t know that’s is working either. I’m recording Elvis Costello’s “Armed Forces” and there are audio drop outs in monitoring, that are clearly from Audacity GUI being busy (or launching and app to write this note causes dropouts). Hopefully those won’t be there in the captured audio. One would be incorrect in that hope. It’s not lack of cpu cycles or memory or scheduling (two core’s - no waiting and it only takes 20% of one core). It gets weirder, I closed all the running apps and that didn’t help. A few minutes later, there’s no dropouts and I reopened all the apps. Except the ALSA mixer. No dropouts. Windows users would reboot. I thought about it.

There’s so many problems I’m not sure where to start or what to undo. The first noticeable problem was that Audacity’s volume setting levels weren’t working. Much fiddling, dinking, dorking, cursing and I got to this clue. It kind of seems that Ubuntu favors ALSA over OSS sound drivers. But you have install stuff, but that the Ubuntu way and they aren’t going to pick favorites. Then you have to configure Audacity to match your choice of OSS or ALSA (and the myriad of subdevices my ALSA driver exposes).

Then you have to configure the ALSA mixer by double clicking the ))) icon. WTF!? In my case I enabled ‘capture’ and in it’s Prefs menu there was a new control that actually made the level adjustments work in Audacity. I’m sure all the audio tweakers like this level of fine tuning but lets make it an ‘option’ instead of the default.

I will now record something to test [Elvis Costello, "Punch The Clock", 1983]. Not his best but a test is a test and there’s a wall of horns occasionally. This test will take — looking at the cassette label, an unspecified time. That was back in those days when we didn’t need any information on the insertion. Cassettes and LP’s didn’t always match up on which songs were on which side or even on the media you don’t have. OK, “Diving for Pearls” is a very pretty song with some nice trumpet. It’s not a wasted test. I feel better.

That was a short lived burst of joy. Dropouts in the recording. Boo! Hiss! Reboot. Drop outs in the recording. What ever, you ungrateful bitch of Microsoft meme copying weasel-ness. I’ll own you.

Solution: [that seems to work, but I'm not claiming anything]
You have to get the Ubuntu sound prefs/(double click the ))) icon as mentioned. OSS or ALSA, just be consistent. In Audacity, in the Prefs, pick your [consistent] choice of devices and DO NOT SELECT PLAYTHROUGH.

No big deal for me. Once the levels get set nearly the same I can record blind. I kind of remember getting pissed at OS X Toast for doing the same thing. The way my in’s and out’s at the receiver’s tape moniter plugs, I don’t need playthrough monitoring if I can trust I got the level settings almost correct. Thank the lord I only have a few cassettes to record. Those Costello’s above, Neil Young (Ragged Glory) and Lou Reed (New York), those are must save.

I’m not going to fix the world. ALERT THE MEDIA! Panic! It’s not like they’ll will fact check me or you, will they? Their fact checking skills pretty much depends on knowing how many buttons on their shirt/blouse are open before the camera points at them.

For no damn reason at all other than why the hell not, I tried to see if I could push Shoes into a iTunes/RhythmBox like user interface. And see how to get Shoes to use new (to it) Ruby Gems [aka, shared code]. I’m pushing the edges of Shoes, there are many bug reports to file, none of them fatal. Well, everything just sucks now days when we are victims, eh?.

Shoes doesn’t suck. Bugs and oddities for sure and some gestalt that’s just around the corner for me. It’s frightening how easy it can be. Took less time than this writing post to haul in a DAAP client library (to talk to iTunes servers) and verify that it works in a GUI. Making a pretty GUI is not my goal and why bother when there’s a zillion music players programs?

To see if I can. That’s enough. I can. I’ve suffered all the cross platform tool-kits. Much more than you. Shoes doesn’t suck. It really doesn’t suck. Yes you could whip out 3 or 4 times more code in your favorite toolkit. Make it look like that loose top button was an oversight. No one told you. Oops, did I show something?

Remember Shoes? A cross platform Ruby framework I’ve been playing at the edges with? Why would you remember that? I do remember though. It’s evolving faster than I can track but I’ve poked around. It’s rough and only partially documented. And not documented the way some linear thinkers would like.

That’s bothered me, so I started farting around to see if I could do something useful for us hierarchy lovers without stepping on toes or modifying Shoes. Rdoc would be fine with me but Shoes and it’s C macros confuse the hell out of Rdoc. I wrote a little script that turns the Shoes/ruby.c code into something rdoc-able. Proof of concept and a poor one at that. Still my whine and my acting on it, woke up the _why (Shoe’s lead developer). He now has a cunning plan and code.

I remember the first time I tried to understand the gcc macros and make them return the function result in the M68000’s r0 instead of top of stack or vice versa or both (that was a long time ago and I almost got it working). Let’s just say it that most of us have no business poking around in gcc macros. _why’s got some of that Macro-Macro code in Shoes, and there’s more now after he met my documentation whine. I think it might be elegant code. Too scary for me.

Serves me right. Whine and deliver.

My fence was finished today. Dude worked most of the day and presented the bill this evening. No questions left unanswered now. I’m mostly pleased. It’s a few inches higher because the pickets aren’t down in the ground, now with an inch or two of space at the bottom. I think that’s an opportunity for putting in a new bed and converting some sprinklers from pop-up to shrub. It’s not like the lawn is particularly healthy there. It’s something to think about and now that the fence is up and nobody can peek at my failures or success, I could do something to fill that gap in. There’s a new blank wall waiting.

As expected, the landscaping and veggie garden took a hit from all the tramping around. This too is a chance to clean things up and not unrelated to the gap. Now that I know what’s on the neighbors sides, I’ll bet they are using some chemical agents to keep my grass out of their beds. That’s what I’d do. That hypothesis is consistent with my dead/weak spots given the surface water flow direction and my new understanding of their beds and sprinklers. It all runs down my way

For a few hours, I had a new dog today, Molly. Not the fence guy’s dog, just one that wandered onto to the back deck and didn’t want to leave it. Well mannered with a name tag and a phone number on her collar. Looking through the screen door so I’d let her in, many, many times, in case I didn’t see her. I called the number from the tags and the real owners came by and picked her up. All dogs should be so gentle.

Come to think of it, all pundits should be so well mannered as the wandering Molly. They too are so deep in their vision quest for home as they want it to be, that they get suckered into a side path and depend on the kindness strangers. Molly got home. There’s not much hope for the pundits. Getting lost inside ideology and being mean is what they do. Pit bulls, bred for snarls for attention. Jesus doesn’t have a phone number for wild animal reports. Somethings we have to do for ourselves.

Fence dude (and his dog) showed up about 1:00PM, just in time for the hot sun and worked his ass off until 8:00PM or so. I have no idea what he was doing for the last two days (sales and customer service probably). He got all the rails attached and staged the pickets for each section of fence in an JIT assembly arrangement. It won’t take him a lot of hours to attach the pickets. Assuming he shows tomorrow, it’s be done tomorrow.

I wonder if the billing process will be also so slow.

Reading from the bag of lawn Fertilizer I bought last year (for “Summer Application” with insect control). “Do not apply before or after rain”. That’s the complete watering schedule. No mention of how many days before or after. It did rain a few weeks ago, it might rain again in a freak thunderstorm but November is usually dependable but that would be Winter Fertilizer. It’s definitely going to get sprinkled on Wednesday, is that like rain?

I once had a bag of this Summer feed that said don’t use above 90F. That’s damn near June through September. That’s a long time without fertilizer, so you know the package is wrong or it wouldn’t be for sale if no-one bought it. This bag didn’t have that warning. Progress! Yey! The only clue, “Kills bugs in one day”. I’m giving it 36 hours to meet the sprinkler rain.

Looks like I’ll get some potatoes and tomatoes this year but I won’t know for several months. Shallots from last year are looking “not terrible”. I’m guessing next month for them. The chili peppers are not inspiring confidence. The Thai basil is OK, or even near good status. I’ve got enough to them to pick as much as I need. That’s a win for sure.

After his 3.5 day weekend the Fence Dude appeared today around noon and set the last few posts in place. He even rang my door to tell me, it’ll go fast now. Also, I should check my phone line because it doesn’t run the way the dig-line folks painted. My phone works so he missed it. An optimist well believe that the job will be done on Wednesday. Ya Sure, you betcha. Weeding the veggies is a lot easier without that fence. No doubt the veggies don’t meet the standards of ornamental planting. If I’d stuck to my dreams and planted corn everywhere, it wouldn’t look any worse from the outside than the fence-less crops. I could have set up a Fresh Corn stand on the corner, hired a couple of kids to stand behind it with a LemonadeReal Local Corn sign. Those dreams not followed can be bitter sweet.

Oh sure, fireworks are fun but how do the quail feel when things explode all over town? No, I’m not thinking of the Monty Python scene where they dash behind exploding “The Larch” trees but you would remember that if I re-planted the memory in your head.

Of course they really aren’t “my quail”. They roam all over the neighborhood looking for whatever quail eat but I like to believe they sleep in my junipers, so they’re mine. Sadly, there was some downsizing and attrition in the covey in the last few days. Instead of a dozen, there’s only eight babies today. Will I be nominated for the PETA “Most Ignorant Homeowner” award?

From the weekly entertainment supplement: A KCBS sanctioned BBQ event will be held in Boise this year on the labor day weekend. Actually its in Eagle Id. which is way out of town by my tight ass standards. The website implies visitors will be able to taste but I don’t believe that. The website is short on details that I can see. It seems to be coded to some variation of Internet Exploder instead of God’s favorite browser, Firefox. Whines aside, they have new sponsors, a venue, a date, KCBS might mean something. I might show up. Smoked Quail in the wild card category?

I’ve tried to talk him out of it, but Frank the Coherence project leader, wants to integrate my hacks into the Coherence base code in the next week or two. I hope that doesn’t break anything unintended. (I tried not to, I swear). It’s his project to manage his way and it’s his choice which random drive-by patcher fits in the trunk (code, the base everybody gets it)

It wasn’t all that surprising to learn that he’d found my blog posts a few days before I contacted him. That’s the web. It’s also not surprising, I’m having some “back away and let it go” issues. Priority issues. There are things I want to fix in Coherence, even though I don’t understand it all that well. Little things that I think could be done, just because I think it should be done my way.

The Shoes (Ruby) documentation effort? I’m not so keen on that today. It is a GUI and I’m not a GUI person and there’s an active group of users and bug reporters already. The only thing worse than GUI programming is doing it in C++. My personal opinion of course, and thankfully not shared, otherwise we wouldn’t have the programs we do have. You can’t argue (too much) with what works.

If you happen to have a Slimp3/Squeezebox you know their browser based control is nothing short of amazing. Open source. Perl and MySql. It’s not in Logitech’s business interest to turn that into some general purpose upnp/dlna server. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done or that there isn’t a demand for that from owners of those devices that also have an Xbox or Playstation or AppleTV in the other room and would prefer not to have gigabytes of media not duplicated across multiple servers.

I’ve got the Buffalo Linkstation NAS with a copy of the data (good backup for me) which is a DAAP (itunes) server. Supposed to be a DLNA (variation PCast) server too but that won’t register on anything I’ve tried in Linux. (the daap side will) I’ve got a v1 Slimp3 player and that lovely Squeeze box interface that I can run only on run on different DB’s and on different servers. So many locks on the doors. I’m not sure I want to go inside those doors.

I don’t like retroactive locks on stuff I’ve paid for. I bought the CD’s. I paid for the vinyl records and the cassette tape. It’s not be mine to (re)sell, or give away (depending on your laws) but it’s mine to use for me. Duplicate copies of data for dueling media servers lock-in? Smells like new locks (?) by inconvenience to me. Coherence’s architecture is promising. Just needs some more code, and a lot of configuration/newbie documentation and options to be exposed. IMHO. I’m just dumb enough to try.